Indonesian oil refinery inferno impacts national fuel supplies

More than 900 people from a nearby village have been evacuated after the inferno in West Java province

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A massive fire at Indonesia’s Balongan oil refinery has prompted an evacuation of nearby residents and led state-owned PT Pertamina to halt all operations at the plant to prevent the conflagration spreading.

Videos shared on social media platforms showed harrowing scenes of flames and billowing smoke against the night sky.

As many as 912 people living in a village near the plant in West Java have been evacuated, local authorities said.

Five people were seriously injured, some suffered minor injuries while several have been reported missing, according to the authorities.

The fire, which affected three storage tanks at the refinery, has been localised, Pertamina President Director Nicke Widyawati told reporters at a briefing.

The cause of the blaze is still unknown, she said.

The fire broke out at 12:45am local time on Monday, Mulyono, the company’s director for logistics, supply chain and infrastructure, said at the same event. Pertamina will rely on supplies from other refineries such as Cilacap and trans-Pacific Petrochemical Indotama to meet fuel demand for Cikampek in West Java and Plumpang in Jakarta, he added.

The company expects the situation at Balongan to return to normal in the next four to five days, said Mulyono, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.

The Balongan refinery began operations in 1994, state news agency Antara reported.

It has a nameplate refining capacity of about 125,000 barrels a day, with its output geared toward clean fuels such as gasoline.

Nationwide gasoline stockpiles stood at 10.5 million barrels, enough to cover 27-28 days of consumption, Mulyono said. There are 8.8 million barrels of diesel, or 20 days worth of consumption, and 3.2 million barrels of jet fuel stored at the plant, he added.